The next speaker was Clr James Charity (@jamescharity14 ) who has ambitions of turning his council seat into an €85k a year MEP salary, via the Alt Right propaganda machine. Previously on the Renua ticket James introduced himself as a practicing barrister and part time farmer, probably the only plum farmer you’ll find in a three piece suit on a Saturday afternoon discussing reunification with the Common Wealth.

Interestingly James quotes George Orwell to make a point about so called ‘Super State’ control over the people of Ireland:

“Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness.”

The fear of being controlled is a powerful tool to lead people in the direction you want them to go as it turns out, however how the Alt Right think using Orwellian quotes will benefit them in the long run is surprising, fascists are more likely to ban his books if they ever gained control. The full quote actually opens with:

“The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics.”

But it’s not as if the barrister has ever read Animal Farm, he was looking for a snap quote to drum up hysteria and added;

"Thank you all for coming out today and sending this message to the orthodoxy, we're not going to be silenced anymore."

Charity’s pitch was that being a net contributor to the EU is reason enough to leave it. The mentality of a greedy man for sure, as if there was no further need to engage with Europe once we’ve drawn down our last possible cent from her.

Charity was by far the most politically organised of those speaking, he laid out a roadmap for elections; "we need people running in every constituency in 2019" he pointed out, most likely using some old Renua powerpoint presentation as none of the other speakers relied on the projector.

The councillor concludes his big day out in D4 with a rally cry for election to the EU with “it starts here” but by now the crowd has thinned and it’s kind of awkward, the hall is made up by red hat tossers, stewards, press, and two very silent Indian blokes. The floor is littered with blank registration forms.

This leads into an awfully prepared interview with Nigel Farage, conducted by John Waters.

Again the micro phones give trouble and it’s hard to make out what Waters is asking Nigel. Reacting to the dwindled crowd Farage opened with a little story about his first UKIP meeting and claimed no-one turned up, no one he repeated, trying to offer the audience some reassurance they were on the right path

Then again you’d be surprised what these astroturfers can do for your grass roots organisation once they have some where to channel their cash.

Farage answered John’s second question with some rhetoric about how government used to be made up by coal miners and union representatives but that they’ve been replaced by ‘career politicians’

“They all go to the same schools, get the same degrees, and marry each other’s sisters” he quipped to a chuckling audience. He then asserted that students doing political studies were not to be trusted as they were corrupted by globalisation and Goldman Sachs. As much as I’m for unionism and proportional representation the assertion that we shouldn’t trust college graduates is quite the opposite direction we need to be heading in. It’s as if you were ill and went to hospital but refused to see a doctor with a medical degree and chose to rely solely on someone with a steadfast belief in magic.

The third question from Waters was on the media and Farage spoke about how he’s been demonised by the press at which point a protester entered the Hall whistling Ode To Joy and waving an EU flag.

The place erupted with shouts of “Traitor” “Get The Fuck Out” and a chorus of Amhran na bhFiann from the front row.

This little stunt was performed by Bruno Canning (@bruno4bass) who has a twitter account set up since December 2012 with 32 tweets and 7 followers.

Whether it was a prepared stunt or not Farage was quick with a witty remark;

“There was a time when we used to protest against the establishment, now the establishment protest against us” as if the show couldn’t be any more of a pantomime.

Not thrown off by events Farage continued his chat with Waters, “The EU globalist politics does nothing for ordinary men and women” which the crowd seemed pleased by but not fully aware of how isolated we were before joining the EU and how we were considered a third world country until very recently.

Farage ended his talk with the 'common man' touch, he really has mastered this approach as he does it very convincingly and with ease;

“I’ve enjoyed life a lot more since stepping down” he remarked on resigning leadership of UKIP before jokingly adding “As a businessman I worked hard every day until lunchtime”.

I’m not sure why Nigel uses the line that he’s enjoying life more since stepping down as leader of UKIP, maybe he’s under less pressure from the press, maybe he’s basking in the victory of Brexit, but part of me thinks he’s tired of the showmanship and facade of his own leave nonsense.

All in all Nigel Farage is a good speaker and although he’s a bit smug he sure doesn’t lack confidence. Ireland could do with more debate on European issues and we should be looking for better candidate’s to represent us in Europe but my strong feeling is that they don’t reside on the far right, nor former Renua candidates or Christian zealots with bigoted opinions.

I also think that everyone has the right to freedom of speech but that it’s no longer the presses job to simply report events. The press need to put an end to the practice of sensationalising bigots for profit and also put a stop to the method of false equivalence which gives sinister voices an equal stance with professional and logical opinion. The press need to fact check where necessary and correct inaccuracies in order to dispel dumbed down politics which leads to hysteria and hate.

If someone who lead a campaign of lies in the UK which resulted in the alteration of the future of the European Union we should be more alert to their presence in Ireland. Such a person is here to violate the foundations of our Republic and we should think twice before giving them a platform of unchallenged opinion. We have to be more aware of the rise of the Alt Right in Ireland and ensure it doesn’t fester.

However I think @JimBliss23 put it best when he tweeted:“Nigel Farage says there's a "gap in the market" for a pro- #Irexit political party. And he's right. It's a very small gap though. Probably about the same size as the gap in the market for an Irish Temperance Party. Or a party seeking a ban on the production and sale of biscuits.”